Inteview with Karl Janisse writer of Passage of the Unknown 9 universe

Unknown 9: Awakening is a new game from Montreal-based Reflector Entertainment that recently launched on console and PC. The title stars Haroona, a Quaestor born able to venture into other people’s bodies. However, Unknown 9 is a universe consisting of various interconnected media and content, combining multiple characters and storylines throughout different periods for the past 150 years.

With all this said, the Unknown 9 universe is also getting a new limited TV series called Passage. I got the opportunity to talk to writer and director Karl Janisse.

He’s a Canadian cinematographer, photographer and visual storyteller and is also working on another Unknown 9 universe title called The Taylor Files. 

How does Passage relate to the Unknown 9 universe?

Unknown 9 is the name of this giant story world that Reflector Entertainment has created. Unknown 9 spans 150 years of story, at least that’s what they told me when I joined. And they’re [Reflector Entertainment] like, here’s all the world we built. It is a book series, and before it was a book series, it was a comic book series, it’s a podcast, all of these things are already out there.

Now, Passage is unique in that the video game runs all the way up until two years before Passage.  So the two are pretty close together and in the story world we kind of reference things that happen in Awakening. In Passage, we have one character from Awakening. One main character is named Amina Lee, who’s played by Christina Lyle.

And then, on top of that, there were like notes and records and references to other characters. And we do actually have the main protagonist from the game present in our show. But I won’t say how because it would kind of spoil some stuff about the game if I went into detail. 

Once people have played through the entire game, here’s where the story continues.

Do I have to play through the whole game to really understand what’s going on for Passage?

I can definitely say that playing the game will give you more context. The time period we exist in, 1914, is the most explored part of the world, so I guess to that realm, there are designs, diagrams, references to secret societies and all that sort of stuff that will make a lot more sense if you play the game or get involved in the world because we don’t go out of our way in the show to explain things like the Leap Year Society, the ascendents, Emilia Matos, secret technologies that exist. They all are just present.

Is there anything that you tied explicitly to Canada in the game?

It’s funny because it’s a Canadian game studio. I don’t know if we… My initial answer will be, I actually don’t feel qualified to answer this. I’d have to hand this to Tomas Street. If he wasn’t busy launching a game today, he’d deserve to be in this interview. He’s a co-writer on the series and narrative designer at Reflector Entertainment. If there is any Canadian lore in there, he would know. He used to be a script supervisor, and he’s got the brain for that.

But I’ll give you this little tidbit. There are things of a Canadian element that made it into the show because we actually shot on an old Canadian Coast Guard Vessel. It might shatter disbelief around the show, and I apologize to the audience if it does because we did not shoot on a boat from 1914. We shot on a privately owned retired Canadian Coast Guard vessel called the Provo Wallace.

[Janisse also had more Canadian influence he mentioned elsewhere in the interview. At this point in the interview I asked if it felt constricted writing a series that relates to a video game. He says that he knew he had to move the story from point A to point B but after that it was sort of open exploration.]

I love writing in that universe. I love having the sort of walls and guidelines to work with. But then having the freedom. They [Reflector Entertainment] said take one of our characters and then everything else is yours. You can bring characters in from other IPs, if it makes sense or you can create your own. And myself, and the other writers had such a great time getting to create in that world. And use reference points.

I live on the coast and there are like marine museums here. So, I literally went and took out old journals of like sailors and read through them. And I was like, oh what is this world? It was a lot of fun to create in that world.”

Does it feel off that there’s nothing uniquely Canadian? Since you’re Canadian and the developer is Canadian. For instance, The Last of Us is not a Canadian game, but the show was filmed in Alberta and people in Alberta have watched and could be like “Hey, I know that place.” But in Passage there’s nothing that ties to Canada.

I mean, we did have one or two scenes that take place on land and I guess someone could find the place, the find the barn or whatever. But at the base of this question is what is a Canadian story? I’m very blessed and privileged to grow up in this country. Canadians are sort of finding our identity or it was sort of found a lot more than when I was growing up. But a big part of being a Canadian storyteller is, like, all of the stories are about descendants of settlers — like myself carrying pieces from all around the world. Whether you’re a first-generation Canadian or your family’s been here for a long time. So unless it’s Indigenous First Nations storytelling, what is a Canadian story, if not the journey of coming of coming here and trying to create a home and coexist and create a family here?

And at the root of what I’ve tried to do with having a production company for years is we focus on co-productions and we always ask, “What other part of the world can we bring into this?” Because everyone I knew growing up had some story of their grandparents, their great-grandparents. “Who came here? What did they bring? What did they leave behind? Why are they here?”

I think we’re always advocating for Canadian stories to really represent that journey of coming from away.

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Passage is available on YouTube. And if you want the full picture, check out Unknown 9: Awakening on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One and PC.

This interview was edited for language and clarity. 

Image credit: Bandai Namco